


The TARDIS, The Time Lord and the Non-Consensual Trim

by UniverseOnHerShoulders



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M, Family, Fluff, Hair
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-28
Updated: 2019-09-28
Packaged: 2020-10-13 11:51:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,609
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20582048
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/UniverseOnHerShoulders/pseuds/UniverseOnHerShoulders
Summary: A storyteller tells a rapt audience a tall tale about a Time Lord with a mass of curly silver hair.





	The TARDIS, The Time Lord and the Non-Consensual Trim

**Author's Note:**

  * For [chenkasinclair (hookedphantom)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hookedphantom/gifts).

> Inspired by my beautiful best friend's tweet [here,](https://twitter.com/brittanyplus/status/1165362538558701568?s=20) and dedicated to the real Megan.

“Once upon a time,” the storyteller began, using the bold, exaggerated voice that people save for children’s stories, and that he could do so well. “In a time machine not so very different from this one-” 

“No, Daddy,” Megan, the listener, interjected in a bossy tone that was an exact mirror of her mother’s. The corner of his mouth twisted up by way of response, and he ruffled her hair fondly. “It wasn’t, because it _was _the TARDIS. Tell it properly.”

“Alright,” the storyteller chuckled, ruffling her hair. “Once upon a time in the TARDIS, there was a man who had run away. He had left his planet to avoid a war; a terrible war, one that had raged for hundreds and hundreds of years and that he had fought in for a long, long time. He had thought that going to war was the right thing to do, but after many years and the death of many of his friends, he grew weary of fighting, so he ran away.”

Megan looked up at him with wide, solemn eyes and reached for his hand, lacing their fingers together as she so often did at this part of the story. He pressed a kiss to her temple, leaving his lips there for a moment before straightening up and continuing. 

“He ran away for years and years. He saw hundreds of planets and solar systems and civilisations. He fought against big bad aliens, like Daleks and Cybermen and Silurians, and he fought against some smaller, funnier aliens too, like the Slitheen and the Abzorbaloff. Sometimes, he found enemies who became friends-” 

“Like Auntie Vastra!”

“Yes, like Auntie Vastra,” he said with a grin. “And Uncle Strax, and sometimes he had friends who became enemies, or some people couldn’t make up their mind which they wanted to be. His oldest friend was a friend-or-enemy, or as he always called them, his ‘best enemy.’ It made his other enemies feel jealous when he called his oldest friend that, but it made his oldest friend feel special. Sometimes they were friends, but for a lot of the time, his oldest friend wanted to kill him, or take over other planets, so the man would have to stop them. It was always sad when they had to part ways after he had foiled the best enemy’s plans, but the man knew he had done the right thing, and it became a repeated event through the man’s life. He would find his best enemy, they would argue, and then he would save the world. It made his oldest friend very cross, and also very sad; they had been friends once, and made grand plans to see the universe, but then they had both run away and their lives had gone very differently.” 

Megan nodded wisely.

“The man wasn’t always on his own while he ran around the universe and saved people. He had friends – lots and lots of friends, and not always human. There were his friends on Earth who were from Sontar and from the Earth, yes, but many thousands of years before. There were his friends who looked human but weren’t, and his friends who weren’t human but wanted to be. He had tall friends and short friends, blue friends and pink friends, friends who could talk and friends with whom he communicated in Semaphore. He loved and cared about them all, and he loved travelling with them and showing them how wonderful the universe could be. Sometimes, his friends left him to have their own lives, or he had to leave them behind because it became too dangerous for them to be together. And sometimes, his friends had accidents, and sometimes they died.”

Megan let out her compulsory gasp of horror. She had heard the story many, many times before, but she still reacted in the same way each time. 

“Sometimes, the man fell in love, and sometimes, he even got married. He married an archaeologist and an Egyptian queen, and he married a film star at a party when he’d had too much in the way of fun. But one day, when he was very old and very jaded, and his wives were all long since dead – or maybe not dead, when you have a time machine, death is complicated – when he met a woman who reminded him that sometimes, falling in love is nice.” 

“Ew,” Megan said emphatically, but she was smiling. “Love is gross.” 

“No, Megan! Love is nice. Anyway, the man met a woman who reminded him that falling in love was something he had done once. Her name was Clara, and she was very clever, and very brave, and very kind. But Clara found it hard to be friends with the man sometimes, because the man she had first met changed his face, and she was confused because the man’s new face was very different. She wasn’t sure if she still liked the new man, and she told him so.”

“Rude.” 

“Not rude, she was just upset. The man she had known wasn’t like the man’s new face and personality. The man’s new self was rude and cross and grumpy, and for a while, Clara wasn’t sure about him. But after a while, she got used to the man being different, and so they continued to travel together, having great adventures and saving the world. And during one of those adventures, the man met his best enemy, and the best enemy explained that it was all because of her that the man and Clara had met. The man was very confused. He liked Clara a lot, but he didn’t trust his best enemy to have made them be friends for good reasons. Worse, he could see that his best enemy was cross about how much he liked Clara, and he wanted to keep Clara safe.” 

“Good!”

“The best enemy seemed to go away after that, but she reappeared a while later. Of course, the best enemy could travel in time as well, but it was still very surprising for Clara to find that the best enemy was still around, and still worried about the man. They had to track him down together, but they walked into a trap, and the best enemy…” he paused for dramatic effect. “Tried to make the man kill Clara!”

Megan let out a shriek of horror, as she always did. “Bad best enemy!” 

“Very bad,” he said solemnly. “The man was very angry and sent her away after he’d saved Clara. He vowed to always keep Clara safe, because he had a duty of care to her. He spent years and years keeping her safe, only then, one day, there was nothing he could do… and she died.”

“No,” Megan whispered, creeping closer to him and burying her face in his hoodie. He wrapped his arms around her reassuringly as she shook her tiny head. “No!” 

“The man was furious. He did everything in his power to save Clara, and he managed to do it by getting his people involved. He tricked them into saving Clara, and then they ran away together in their TARDIS. He hoped that they’d be safe, and that his best enemy would never find them, and for a while, he was right. They got married. They had a little baby girl…” 

Megan beamed. 

“And they felt safe and happy. They kept saving the universe, taking their baby with them, tied to their backs. They saved hundreds and hundreds of people, and everything seemed wonderful. But far away, the man’s best enemy was jealous. She was cross that the man had forgotten her, and cross that he had married Clara. You see… the best enemy was a little bit in love with the man, and she was cross that he hadn’t come to see her. She knew that Clara loved the man’s hair, which was soft and silver and bouncy, and so one day, the best enemy came up with a plan. She crept into the TARDIS one day with a great big pair of clippers while everyone was asleep, and she shaved all his hair off! _Bzzzzzz, bzzzzzz, bzzzzzz, _and it was _all gone_.” 

Megan let out a horrified squeal.

“The man woke up, of course, just as the best enemy was putting all his hair in bags to do a magic spell with. They had a _big _argument, and she ran away, leaving his hair behind. The man was every embarrassed that he had no hair. He tried to stick it back on, but it didn’t work, and he desperately didn’t want Clara to see him. So he snuck away and hid, but Clara found him. She told him that it didn’t matter to her that he had no hair, and she took the bag with his curls in, and put it away safely, because she said it was an important part of him that they should look after. And they waited, and they waited, and over time, his hair grew back. The end.” 

“And the best enemy?” 

“The best enemy never reappeared,” he said with a small, ambivalent shrug. “She’s probably off formulating some kind of dastardly plan, but it doesn’t matter, because-” 

“You got your hair back.”

“Exactly. Goodnight, princess.” 

“Goodnight, Daddy.”

The Doctor stayed where he was until she was deeply asleep, then carefully got to his feet and turned away from his daughter’s bed, jumping as he found Clara stood in the doorway.

“Our story again?” she asked in a fond voice.

“Our story again,” he said with an apologetic grin. “What can I say? She loves hearing about me with no hair.”


End file.
